We have a complicated relationship with cell phones. They piss us off at concerts and they're ruining our social skills, but they are also great for sexting. Well yesterday, all that was made irrelevant when a cell phone stopped a bullet, saving a man's life and earning Superman's respect all at the same time.
Harlem handyman Juan Camarena was confronted and attacked by the old super of the building he works at on W. 119th Street yesterday morning. The ex-super, Tommie Davis, had been fired a month ago, but refused to leave the building, or even allow others to perform mop duty. Davis irately waved his handgun in front of Camarena and new super Jose Cruz on the stairwell of the building and barked at them to leave. When they didn't, he left, came back, and shot Camarena at close range (5-to-6 feet away).
"He looked me in the eye and shot me. The bullet went straight into my belt buckle. I had my cell phone right there. I checked and both my cell phone and belt buckle were in pieces, but the bullet did not go in," Camarena told the Daily News. For you folks on the market for a new, bullet-stopping cell phone, it was a Nextel i530.
Davis fled and is still at large, though some residents weren't too surprised at his behavior: "He was mad they were taking his job...[Davis] is not normal. He is not a sane person," said Eliya Washington, vice president of the building's board. Camarena remarkably escaped the ordeal with nothing more than a scratch, but he may have started a dangerous new cult: "Thanks to my cell phone I'm alive. I can't explain it—it's about divinity."
